This is more than just some passing governmental bad judgment in a time of crisis. This is a serious case of free speech going down the tubes.

The "compromise" that the City is offering doesn't just disallow a march or access to the UN. The NYPD has also said that it is going to put the protesters in pens along First Avenue. I experienced this NYPD tactic last year at the anti-WEF protest. It basically means that they contain everyone in fragmented groups inside rings of barricades, with just enough room for people to stand shoulder to shoulder. This allows the cops not only to keep traffic moving (thus diminishing the impact of the protest), but to target people in the crowd for arrest, and to use tear gas and other riot control methods against a completely restrained and helpless crowd. It amounts to temporary detention without charges by the police, and this is not an exaggeration - last year at the WEF, thousands of tired, cold people, already penned in so tight we could barely move, were held for several hours and not allowed to leave the protest site.

Such conditions hardly constitute the "safety of the marchers" the NYPD disingenuously purport they are trying to protect. And as many have already pointed out, their invocations of post-9/11 security concerns ring deeply false as well, since events like the St. Patrick's Day Parade and the Puerto Rican Day Parade - which produce far more participant rowdiness and crowd control headaches than a peaceful protest march - have been unconditionally allowed. The Chief of Police himself stated in court that the NYPD's new policy is to deny permits specifically to protest marches.

It should be clear to everyone that there is a concerted governmental effort to suppress dissent and opposition to the Bush Administration's war plans and the Ashcroft Justice Department's continuing rollback of civil liberties. That objections such as this should be widely dismissed as overreactions; that, even more disturbingly, a major newspaper (the New York Sun, Feb. 6) could publish an editorial accusing anti-war protesters of treason, should stand as further evidence of the escalating attempts to neutralize dissent that currently characterize governmental authority, mainstream media, and what both of these allege as the national mood.

With each passing day under these conditions it becomes more and more urgent that we claim our right to dissent now, while we still can. Everyone reading these words should go to www.unitedforpeace.org (the Feb. 15 march organizers) and follow the directions on how to contact City officials to register your opposition to the march ban. More importantly, we should all get out into the streets as often and in as many numbers as possible, and use our bodies and our voices to defend the ever-shrinking ground of the right to dissent on which we stand.